Results 5,861-5,880 of 27,613 for speaker:Heather Humphreys

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: Paternity Benefit is payable for 2 weeks to employed and self-employed parents who take Paternity Leave from employment and who satisfy certain PRSI conditions on their own insurance record. The leave must be taken within 26 weeks after the birth of the child. Applicants must complete a Paternity Benefit application, including a submission from the employer confirming the dates of the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: Last September, I announced the largest Social Protection budget in the history of the State, providing over €2.2 billion in supports to people across the State. This was in recognition of the pressures facing households due to the increasing cost of living. I was also pleased to announce two "double week" bonus payments - an Autumn bonus and a Christmas bonus. For the first time in...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: The purpose of an Exceptional Needs Payment (ENP) is to assist people with essential expenditure, which a person could not reasonably be expected to meet out of their available resources. The ENP is demand led and payments are made at the discretion of the officers administering the scheme taking into account the requirements of the legislation and all the relevant circumstances of the case....

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: The Working Family Payment is an in-work support which provides an income top-up for employees with children who are on low earnings. It is designed to prevent in-work poverty for low paid workers with child dependents and to offer a financial incentive to take-up employment. To qualify for the Working Family Payment, the average total weekly family income must be below the relevant income...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Eligibility (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: The Government recognises the changing shape of the Irish family. The Family Leave and Miscellaneous Provisions Act 2021 amended the Adoptive Leave Act 1995 to enable adoptive couples to choose which parent may avail of adoptive leave and, in doing so, rectified an anomaly in the legislation that left married male same-sex couples unable to avail of Adoptive Leave. The Act also removed the...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: The Social Welfare Appeals Office is an Office of the Department of Social Protection which is responsible for determining appeals against decisions in relation to social welfare entitlements. Appeals Officers are independent in their decision-making functions. The table below outlines the total number of appeals received in the Social Welfare Appeals Office in 2022 in respect of all...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: Under current eligibility conditions, applicants must have 520 full-rate paid contributions to qualify for standard State pension (contributory). Pension entitlement depends on factors such as a person’s social insurance record, their attachment to the workforce, and countries of employment. Depending on an individual’s social insurance history, their entitlement may be assessed...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: This Government acknowledges the important contribution that carers provide and is fully committed to supporting them in that role. Accordingly, the current State Pension (Contributory) system gives significant recognition to those whose work history includes an extended period of time outside the paid workplace, often to raise families or to provide another full-time caring role. PRSI...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: State Pensions (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: The State Pension (Contributory) is a PRSI-based pension, financed by contributions made by current workers and their employers, and paid to pensioners, at a rate based upon their PRSI record. A person is required to have a minimum of 520 paid reckonable PRSI contributions in order to qualify for the State Pension (Contributory). As the actuarial value of the State Pension is currently...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Appeals (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: The Social Welfare Appeals Office is an Office of the Department of Social Protection which is responsible for determining appeals against decisions in relation to social welfare entitlements. Appeals Officers are independent in their decision-making functions. The table below provides details of the total number of appeals on hands as of 30 April 2023 in respect of means-tested social...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: My Department is committed to providing a quality service to all its customers, ensuring that applications are processed and that decisions on entitlement are made as quickly as possible. In general, social welfare schemes which involve medical or caring conditionality take the longest time to process. These cases have a number of complex qualifying conditions. There are a number of elements...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: My Department does not make any payments to men and women throughout the country on reaching their 100th birthday. The only function that my Department has is to ascertain on request from the President's office, if these customers are alive. Therefore there are no such records held by my Department.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Benefits (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: Carer's Allowance (CA) is a means-tested social assistance payment made to a person who is habitually resident in the State and who is providing full-time care and attention to a child or an adult who has such a disability that, as a result, they require that level of care. Information on the relationships between carers and their care recipients is not centrally recorded by my Department....

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: Under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, my Department may make Additional Needs Payments to help meet essential expenses that a person cannot pay from their weekly income. This is an overarching term used to refer to exceptional and urgent needs payments, and certain supplements to assist with ongoing or recurring costs that cannot be met from the customer’s own resources,...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: The Deserted Wife's Benefit scheme, introduced in 1973, was closed to new applications with effect from 2 January 1997, when One Parent Family Payment was introduced. Deserted Wife's Benefit was payable to a woman deserted by her husband, based on the social insurance contributions paid by the wife or her husband. Currently, the scheme has 4,554 recipients. As a closed scheme, remaining...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: Widow's, Widower's or Surviving Civil Partner's (Contributory) Pension is a weekly payment to the husband, wife or civil partner of a deceased person. Either you or your deceased spouse or civil partner must have enough social insurance (PRSI) contributions. At the end of December 2017, there were 121,091 recipients of this scheme. At the 31st of December 2022, 30,476 of these individuals...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Departmental Schemes (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: As the Deputy will be aware, referrals to the JobPath service have ceased and the service is now in a run-off phase, with only clients referred up to June 2022 remaining engaged with the service. The annual JobPath budget for 2023 is €20M. As part of a restructuring of employment services, my Department has increased its own employment service capacity delivered through Intreo and...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Social Welfare Payments (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: Under the supplementary welfare allowance scheme, my Department may make Additional Needs Payments to help meet essential expenses that a person cannot pay from their weekly income. This is an overarching term used to refer to exceptional and urgent needs payments, and certain supplements to assist with ongoing or recurring costs that cannot be met from the customer’s own resources,...

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Public Services Card (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: Some 696,000 Public Services Cards (PSC) issued in 2022 of which 285,000 were Free Travel cards. From January to end April this year, some 235,500 PSCs were issued of which almost 95,000 were Free Travel cards. I trust this clarifies the matter for the Deputy.

Written Answers — Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection: Public Services Card (23 May 2023)

Heather Humphreys: The Free Travel Scheme was introduced in 1967 to promote social inclusion and prevent the isolation of elderly and disabled people by taking advantage of free space on public transport services. The Free Travel Scheme is available to all persons aged over 66 and those under age 66 on certain qualified payments, who are living legally and permanently in the State. The scheme permits those...